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Photo finish for Mundelein photographer
Stanley Kirschner – inside his Mundelein residence with his digital camera – recently won a photo contest at Fermilab. | Michelle LaVigne ~ Sun-Times Media
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Updated: December 24, 2012 1:46PM
MUNDELEIN – Through his camera lens, Stanley Kirschner saw a mound of green wires, with one bright, blue wire threading through, and knew he found an unusual image.
When he snapped the photo, he never imagined it would be the best of the 234 photographs – all shot in restricted, high-tech areas of Fermilab – submitted in this year’s Fermilab Photowalk Competition.
On Sept. 22, 50 photographers were allowed access to high-tech areas of the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia to shoot photos for this year’s competition.
Q: What is your photography background?
A: I just have a real passion for photography and taught photography at the University of Vermont in the continuing education department. In 1972, I took a workshop from Ansel Adams in Yosemite National Park.
Q: What was it like the day of the photo shoot?
A: There was a group of 50 of us. They broke us up into groups of 10 and sent us to five different locations that are restricted to the public.
Q: What drew you to take the winning shot?
A: I looked up and I saw this bundle of green wires coming into a Y with a blue wire there. That was very interesting to me.
Q: How did you become a good photographer without any real formal training?
A: I can pre-visualize. And I look for possibilities. I always look around for different possibilities.
Q: What kind of camera do you use?
A: I’ve always used Nikon since back in the 1960s. I also used a Hasselblad. That’s the camera NASA used to go to the moon. They’re film cameras. I just recently sold it.
Q: Do you travel to take pictures?
A: Every year I go someplace different. This year I went to Glacier National Park. Last year I went to Arches National Park in Utah, and the year before I went to Page, Ariz. It’s an underground canyon. I also enjoy going to the Botanical Gardens once or twice a month.
